The rat in question is Templeton in the stage version of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. Theater of Youth revives this favorite which it has produced a half dozen times in its 34-year history. Newell has played this sardonic rodent with TOY twice before. For a man like Newell, who upon first impression is friendly, witty and soft-spoken, it may seem a somewhat surprising role.

Tim Newell is a character actor and proud to be one. This breed of performer usually plays bit parts or secondary leads which, if lacking in complexity, are certainly more vivid than leads. Character actors or actresses in film specialize in types…snappy sidekicks like Eve Arden or scruffy schemers like Steve Buscemi. On the stage, the breadth of parts for a character actor is wider and the roles often vary a great deal from one’s own type or, in the case of Newell’s Templeton, species.

If there is a hazard in being a character actor it is that many characters one is asked to play are despicable humans, and Newell has certainly played his share. However, on occasion, something fine in this line comes along. His next role will be Iago in Othello, opening in July for Shakespeare in Delaware Park, as multifaceted a role as one could want and considered by some Shakespeare partisans to be more intricate than the play’s title character.

Tim relishes playing villains and, listing some of his beloved baddies, cites the reasons why.

“We get the best costumes,” he quips. A little bit more seriously, he states the essence of these parts: “Villains drive the plot.”

For Newell, stage treachery is a refined art. “Iago, as one very good example, comes off as so charming…and honest! He is constantly referred to as honest,” he says. “But any villain wears many masks because there are so many people along the way they have to manipulate and coerce. So you can’t jump off going for the jugular. There has to be a path to getting there.”

This Newell learned after being chided in a newspaper review for one-dimensionality—only being evil in a role with no other aspect to the character. “I digested that review and I then tried to take that character there,” Newell recalls. “It is important to create an arc for these characters. I finally realized that the character was not just a bad guy but someone pushed to his extreme limits.”

Transformation, both cosmetic and physical, is a character actor’s stock in trade. The tasks of making up, putting on costume and otherwise altering appearance help take Newell away from himself and further into character. Perhaps the transformative aspect of becoming a character actor provides a buffer zone between Newell and the disagreeable men he embodies. Sometimes this transformation is more impactful than anticipated.

In the drama Good, a co-production of Irish Classical and Jewish Repertory theaters, he comfortably worked with friends and colleagues for weeks until dress rehearsal. He slicked his hair to the side, put on the little moustache and a brown suit to play Adolf Hitler. He was disturbed to notice cast-mates walking out of their way to avoid him. Newell relates that Saul Elkin, his friend and co-star, could not look him in the eye while dressed for that particular role.

Yet, Newell was a villain by historic reputation only. His memorable entrance into the play, while wearing full Nazi uniform and regalia, was at a high-stepping prance and playing the violin. This Hitler was less a political madman and more a showman.

Lest anyone think Newell is nothing but evil on the hoof, he is quick to bring up his impersonation of a real-life, beloved showman: Jack Benny. After a successful stand here in Buffalo in a solo show written for him, Tim played Benny for a one-night appearance at the Players Club in New York City. It is ironic that years earlier, he almost ended his theatrical career in that same city.

Leaving Jamestown after graduation from college, he felt little stamina for the rigors of theater business there. Instead, he channeled his talents into visual art and absented himself from performing. Returning, he found himself quickly cast, most often in comic roles, the flipside to villainy in a character actor’s career—and subsequently with more frequency and with more diversity.

It is the prolific nature of theater here that keeps Tim Newell in Buffalo and keeps him working. “There is no way any actor, whether a character actor, an ingénue, or a leading man, can achieve as much as one can achieve in Buffalo. I am truly blessed.”

Charlotte’s Web, adapted by Joseph Robinette from the novel by E.B. White, presented by Theatre of Youth, runs May 4 through June 3 at the Allendale Theatre, 203 Allen Street (884-4400, theatreofyouth.org).

Othello, by William Shakespeare, presented by Shakespeare in Delaware Park, will run July 26 through August 9 in Delaware Park (shakespeareindelawarepark.org).